Our oldest documented ancestors are Leonard Fretwell and his wife, Nancy Timberlake. Circumstantial evidence is very strong that Leonard Fretwell is the grandson of William Fretwell and his wife Mary Evatt. We continue to try to "prove up" this linkage with solid documentation, but that may never happen, because so many of Virginia's official records were destroyed by fire during the Revolutionary War and again during the Civil War.
The circumstantial case for William and Mary is pretty strong, however. For them not to be our ancestors would require another "phantom" Fretwell family living in Cumberland County concurrent with them; a family that never left any trace in the government records (birth, marriage, death, census, will, or land deed). No genealogist worth their salt would suggest that such circumstantial evidence meets the requirements of documentation. Nonetheless, in the absence of "hard" records, all that remains is circumstantial evidence. It is not as good as actual paper documentation, but it still pretty strong evidence.
For whatever significance you may attach to it, here is the history of William Fretwell and Mary Evatt, so far as we know it.
They spent their lives in Virginia, in the farmlands surrounding Richmond. They were slaveholders, and owned farmland.
They were unusually mobile for the times, having moved at least thrice during their marriage. Their three counties of residence--Essex, Middlesex, and Cumberland--are shown in yellow on the map.
What we know about William Fretwell (1708 to 1788) prior to his marriage is scanty. He is presumed to have been born somewhere in Essex County, Virginia, but this is not proven. William Fretwell appeared in the records of Virginia for the first time in 1724 when he was paid for a court appearance in Essex County. He next appears in 1730 when he marries Mary Evatt.
We do not know his father nor mother, although we have some interesting leads. A Joseph Fretwell is mentioned in the records of Albemarle County a few years before William first apprears in the government records. Many assume this Joseph is William's Father. This is pure conjecture, however, as there is no documentation nor even other circumstantial evidence to support this idea. Still, it is an interesting "lead" to be explored more as opportunity presents itself.
Unlike William, we know much about his wife, Mary Ann Evatt (1711 to 1791). We have an excellent genealogy for her father's side clear back to William Walter Evatt\Euote, in England, in about 1266. We know who her ancestor was that emmigrated to America, and about when: it was her grandfather, Thomas Evatt, and he appears in Virginia very early, approximately concurrent with the founding of Jamestown. Her father, also called Thomas, was born in Virginia in about 1670.
One thing we know for sure, both William and Mary were of English stock. Both surnames are solidly English, and the partiarchal lineage is English. Some of Mary's ancestors moved to Ireland, and presumably married Irish women, so our matriarchal lineage is surely partly Irish.
William Fretwell and Mary Ann Evatt married somewhere in Essex County in 1730. She was 19, and he was 22. Some time after their marriage in 1730, but before 1736, William and Mary moved from Essex County to Middlesex County.
Their first three children (at least the first three we know about: William born in 1736, John born in 1738, and Rebecca born in 1741) were born in Middlesex County, as recorded in the Christ Church registry there.
Christ Church was the name given to most, if not all, Anglican churches at the time, so one might surmise that William and Mary were Anglican. This is not necessarily so, however, because prior to the American Revolution of 1776, the Anglican church was an integral part of the English government, and the Anglican church was the official place where all births were registered, whether the parents were Anglican or "dissenters" (persons of non-Anglican persuasion). So, the birth records in the Anglican Church are not necessarily proof that William and Mary were Anglicans. But, the (non-manditory) christening records for two of these three children at this same Christ Church probably are adequate confirmation that William and Mary were indeed Anglicans.
William purchased 100 acres of land in Essex County, in 1747. He and Mary and family resided there until 1763, when he purchased 250 acres of land in Cumberland County, Virginia. They lived there until his death in 1788. It is not clear if Mary continued to reside there after William's death. She died in 1791, location unknown.
We do know that their oldest son, also named William (whom I have designated as "Jr."), moved from Cumberland County to Albemarle County sometime before his death in 1806. I have included Albemarle County on the map to show its location relative to the three counties his father lived in. This son is noted for his signature on the Albemarle Petition, shown elsewhere on this website.